CLEVELAND, OH.- In 2015, the Cleveland Museum of Art entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Museum of Cambodia. As a result of the close collaborative relationship that resulted from this partnership, the NMC subsequently sent to Cleveland pieces belonging to a renowned fragmentary stone sculpture of about the year 600 in the CMA’s collection, Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan, which was long ago broken into many pieces that were found at different times. In addition, the CMA provided the NMC with pieces belonging to a monumental broken sculpture in its collection, also depicting Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan from the same time and place. This collaborative process led to the restoration of the two Krishna sculptures, both of which are on view in their newly restored forms for the first time in the CMA exhibition.

Organized by the CMA, Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain presents the story, context and new restoration of Cleveland’s Krishna. The exhibition transports visitors to the dramatic floodplains of southern Cambodia and illustrates the history of the sculpture, spanning 1,500 years and three continents. The exhibition unveils Krishna alongside nine other related large-scale sculptures generously lent from the NMC, the Angkor Borei Museum and the Musée national des arts asiatiques–Guimet in Paris, through an integration of art, technology and experiential design. Revealing Krishna is on view in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall from November 14, 2021, through January 30, 2022.

“The opportunity to restore these masterworks of Cambodian sculpture is yet another result of our recently renewed Memorandum of Understanding with the National Museum of Cambodia,” said William M. Griswold, director of the CMA. “This exhibition highlights the incredible story of our Krishna using immersive digital design. Unprecedented loans from our Cambodian and French colleagues reunite our Krishna with contemporaneous works from the same region for the first time in centuries.”

“The new restoration of the two important early sculptures of Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan resulted from years of collaborative research and generous exchanges of information among colleagues mainly from Cambodia and the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO),” said Sonya Rhie Mace, George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art. “The Revealing Krishna exhibition presents a unique opportunity to see the masterworks from Phnom Da together, in their new, true forms.”

“Through immersive experiences, visitors will effortlessly understand the varied, multifaceted stories within this exhibition, learn the fascinating circumstances that brought the exhibition to fruition and grasp the magnitude of the Cleveland Krishna’s journey,” said Jane Alexander, chief digital information officer. “Meaningful innovation initiates relationships with the artwork, and the blend of the physical and digital will leave people talking about the art and the story it tells.”

Experiencing Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain

Journey to Phnom Da

The opening gallery transports visitors to the waterways of the Mekong River delta and Phnom Da, the sacred mountain where the Cleveland Krishna was found. Three 22-foot-long projections form an immersive corridor with views of the canals leading to Phnom Da in a cinematic and audio landscape. Filmed in Cambodia with a three-camera rig and drone, the projected footage allows visitors to see varied views of the surrounding landscape from the vantage point of the canals as they travel virtually toward the two-peaked mountain.




Sculptures of Angkor Borei

This sculpture gallery features five works from the ancient metropolis of Angkor Borei and nearby sacred sites. They depict both Hindu and Buddhist images made by Cambodian sculptors. Sandstone as a medium for sculpture in Southeast Asia rose to prominence in the 500s, and within a century, Cambodian artists in the region of Angkor Borei developed exceptional stone-carving skills and a local style widely celebrated for its power and sensitivity.

HoloLens Experience: The Story of the Cleveland Krishna

In the third gallery, visitors are introduced to the world of Phnom Da and immersed in the global story of Cleveland’s Krishna through a mixed-reality Microsoft HoloLens 2 tour. The voice of Krishna guides visitors through an augmented-reality landscape that blends photorealistic virtual 3D models of locations and sculptures with ethereal motifs from the Krishna myth. This tour unfolds through each visitor’s HoloLens 2 headset, providing surround sound and situating the virtual experience as if the visitor were actually there. Visitors follow the journey of Krishna from Cambodia to Europe and Cleveland, and back again. The experience culminates in a life-size 3D projection of the CMA Krishna completely restored and reinstated in the cave temple it originally occupied on Phnom Da. Visitors must be 12 or older to participate in the HoloLens portion of the exhibition.

Sculptures of Phnom Da

Around the year 600, artists in southern Cambodia achieved an impressive level of skill and inspired vision in the creation of divinities in human form that was unprecedented in the region. Eight monumental sculptures found on Phnom Da are the exemplars of the “Phnom Da Style” that launched the history of Cambodian art. In the fourth gallery, four of them are on view together for the first time: two Krishnas lifting Mount Govardhan, Krishna’s brother Balarama, and the four-armed dual god Harihara, who is half Vishnu and half Shiva. The sculptures of Phnom Da were all carved from monolithic blocks of dark-colored, highly polished sandstone and included a sturdy tenon that secured them to broad pedestals.

Gods of Phnom Da

In the fifth gallery, the eight gods of Phnom Da are reunited, digitally, for the first time in centuries through interactive, motion-activated projections, providing detailed views of each one’s unique iconography. This experience allows visitors intimate, rarely seen views of these ancient sculptures through animations of high-resolution 3D models, projected at life size.

Immersive Timeline—Gods of Phnom Da: Global Journeys

The exhibition culminates with a film installation narrated by director, actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie and Loung Ung, the best-selling author of First They Killed My Father. They share with visitors the origins, discovery and conservation history of the eight gods of Phnom Da. Formatted as a panoramic horizon, eight screens are aligned to create an L-shaped configuration in the corner of the exhibition’s final gallery. Visitors are shown archival images of excavations, from the 1800s to 2021, as well as present-day footage and animated maps illustrating the story arc of these ancient sculptures. The film concludes by examining the ambitious conservation initiatives that have taken place throughout the past decade, which involved intensive collaboration and exchange with colleagues in Cambodia, and by highlighting the CMA’s evolving role of stewardship within the global landscape.